BishopAccountability.org
	Parish Urged to Suspend Donations By Paula Tracy New Hampshire Union Leader May 12, 2009 http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Parish+urged+to+suspend+donations&articleId=478b9265-16df-4ec5-86e8-fa5233401d40 LACONIA – A decision to consolidate three Catholic parishes in Laconia was met by a petition encouraging St. Joseph Church parishioners to withhold weekly contributions in protest. The consolidation will mean Laconia will go from having 12 Masses each weekend this summer to fewer than nine, some estimate, and it could lose the region's only Latin Rite Mass. News of the consolidation came in the bulletins for the Saturday evening Mass at St. Joseph Church on Church Street, Our Lady of the Lakes Church in Lakeport and Sacred Heart Church on Union Avenue, where a Latin Mass is offered. The decision by the Diocese of Manchester to consolidate the three churches includes reassigning all the priests. The news was met with "shock and anger; people were upset and hurt," said the Rev. Adrien Longchamps of Sacred Heart, where about 750 families worship. By Sunday, a petition drive was under way in an effort to keep the Rev. Gary Kosmowski at St. Joseph. Distributed by an unidentified parishioner, the petitions called the decision "blatantly wrong" and "a travesty" and urged parishioners to withhold weekly contributions and fill the offertory instead with a statement of protest. Longchamps said he told his own parishioners such an effort would "accomplish nothing" and he urged they accept the change "because this is going down in June." At Our Lady of the Lakes, where the Rev. Eddie Bisson will be reassigned, the news was not welcome, but there was no protest petition. Bishop John McCormack, head of the Diocese of Manchester, is facing a shortage of priests as fewer join the church. This is similar to consolidations under way in Dover and recently accomplished in Portsmouth. In his statement, McCormack said the Laconia consolidation has been discussed for about a year. He wrote that a new pastor and an associate will be named in the next few weeks and the three churches will remain open under that pastor's guidance, but they would become a citywide parish sometime between June and July. Longchamps said it is still not known whether the new pastor and/or associate would be offering a Latin Rite Mass. He said there are now only three other sites in the diocese where the Latin Mass is offered: Portsmouth, Nashua and Keene. Kosmowski arrived as a 33-year-old priest in the summer of 1996 and is a well-known and charismatic leader in the community. He did not immediately return phone calls yesterday. Bisson also was not available for comment. Withholding contributions in protest to actions within the church is somewhat new to New Hampshire's Catholic church, but has been used in the neighboring Diocese of Boston to call for the resignation of then-Cardinal Bernard Law during the sex abuse scandal. According to the weekly collections information, St. Joseph Church takes in about $5,000 a week in various offerings. While it is also standard for priests to be reassigned every six years, with occasional six-year extensions, the petition called Kosmowski "our friend ... and we are his family." Kevin Donovan, diocese spokesman, said, "It takes a long time to do the due diligence and finally combine the new parish." Parishes will continue to have their own records, staffs, books and buildings. "The new pastor will decide a number of changes that could also come," Donovan said. He acknowledged it is "not atypical for parishioners to be saddened and angry when a pastor leaves. It is a testament to his service. But it doesn't help the parish to withhold support ... towards sustaining the ministry, education and charitable services. They pay for its staff. It is not supporting the mission in protesting in that way. ... Really, the diocese is the parish."
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